A firm has been fined £10,000 for breaching health and safety rules after a worker’s hand was crushed.
The 40-year-old, who lives in Stourbridge but has asked not to be named, was injured in July last year after carrying out work at ThyssenKrupp (Materials) UK Ltd’s Tyseley site.
Birmingham Magistrates Court heard how he had been removing chocks used to hold up a pressure beam when the incident occurred. The chocks were only being used temporarily during essential maintenance work but as the worker removed them from a bed of a plate, the beam fell on his hand. He needed to take three months off work after the incident but has since returned to the company.
A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found that the firm, a subsidiary of the ThyssenKrupp group, failed in its duty to provide workers with sufficient information, instructions and training or to properly manage the site maintenance programme.
The Cradley Heath-based firm admitted to breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and was fined £10,000 for the incident, along with £940.50 in costs.
HSE inspector Paul Cooper said after the hearing: “ThyssenKrupp Materials should have spent time working out safe working methods for all maintenance tasks, especially those which were routine
“There were no written risk assessments or safe systems of work in place.
“The company should also have made sure that the engineers were given the necessary training on the machines and the information they needed to operate them.
“Instead, they were given nothing and expected to learn as they went along.
“Since the incident the firm has brought in service engineers to do the most intricate maintenance work and arranged for those engineers to give the employees training on the machines.
“Had they done this before, a worker could have been spared a painful injury.”
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